


longing

by novaimperator



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, brief description of the aforementioned, in a broad sense i suppose, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novaimperator/pseuds/novaimperator
Summary: Those bleak laboratory walls, though they fell long ago, still trap him.He keeps forget-me-nots in his gloves.Edward knows this moment of clarity will soon fade just like his body, too.





	longing

         Edward has decided he does not miss his mother.

         He misses his mother’s love, her protection, the sanctuary she offered. He misses the days spent alongside her out in meadows and on beaches--they were days spent away from Father.  But he does not miss _her_ . He does not miss his childhood. Mother is inseparable from his childhood. He does not miss his childhood, because _Father_ was his childhood; Father and his lab, Father, with his shouting and syringes and selfishness. The Nasod studies headed by Father, ever sedulous, are inextricable from the consequences he suffered for incorrect answers.

         Edward once adored Nasods.

         Mother worked with plants; she preferred nature to technology. She wondered about the world and wished to share its wonders with him. They visited the wilderness together whenever they could. Her lab was bright, warm, and filled with life much like she herself. Father’s was bitingly cold, such were his words. Those bleak laboratory walls, though they fell long ago, still trap him. They keep him caged in his past.

         He keeps forget-me-nots in his gloves.

         Now he understands that he cannot go back in time, for it is simply impossible, and now he understands that he does not want to return to then. He touches the scar on his skin, reminds himself of the dark sclera he bears like a scarlet letter. _Look, everyone, at me! There is something wrong with my existence, see?_

         He spreads his hands, the small hands of a child, in front of him, watches little particles of time and space jump and dissipate. _I am lucid,_ he thinks, _yes. I am sane as that young boy, because time no longers ties me to myself. That is why I have his body now._ He is aware this moment of clarity will fade just like his body soon, too. Perhaps he’s had this same realization time and time again, only to be forgotten as soon as he returns to himself. Wouldn’t that be ironic? To have finally found his solution, but be doomed to struggle for it over and over, unable to truly reach it, just as he did all these years searching uselessly for his world. The issue as well as its resolution, one and the same.

         That innocent Edward and this inane Add, one and the same.

         He thinks back to all the alternate worlds he’s witnessed. His memory doesn’t work as it used to, but nonetheless there are a couple of recollections that have stuck with him. He knows of the universe where he, as an adult, was happy, _healthy._ It appeared he had moved on to create technologies of his _own_ idea, and that he smiled with contentment rather than lunacy. However, in another, he had became more or less what Father had wanted him to be-- some sort of Nasod-human hybrid, emanating power and confidence. But even that version was an existence that did not cause issues, one with had a logical progression and stable outcome. _I am an unfortunate creature._

When in battle, he is always aware of the flowers nestled against his palm. He supposes it evokes the thought of _why_ he is fighting, what all the trouble is meant to be for. He theorizes that Add still struggles against the laws of the world, and those blue blossoms prevent him from forgetting why. Presently, of course, he does not believe there is a reason to continue anything at all. He would never obtain that which he longed for. Quite simply, there was no way to, there never was. And, he came to realize, he could not return to Mother without also returning to Father. The mother he loved and the father he hated were of the same time. If Father was not in a world, then it was not his world nor his happiness within it. _So long it took for me to understand._ He raises his eyes to the darkness above and smiles sadly.

          _This future was supposed to be a gift._

Mother had sent him here to keep him safe. Safe from Father and all the rest of the universe’s horrors. But she could not protect Edward from himself, so he brought this wretched mess down and ended up a horror of the universe himself, wandering aimlessly through all time and space breaking whatever there was merely because he could. And now there was nothing to change. He couldn’t fix a single thing. He is as powerless as he was fifteen years ago, but twice as violent and thrice as lost. He sits now thinking he does not want to hurt people; no longer does he wish to harm others as he was harmed. But in the coming hours he will wake once more as a man unable to leave his past or infantile mind, a man who imprisoned himself in his hurt, and he will feel nothing except petals chafing his hand as he rips cities, continents, families apart in the same way his Father to his spirit did.

         He considers all the people he used to know. They do not give any of their thoughts to him anymore, he’s sure. But those kids--no, they, as grown people--most of them learned to control their darknesses, he believes. That red-haired boy, the swordsman, he forced the Dark El under his control so he could better himself. Ishmael’s servant, though he too lost his physical being, still retained his mind after his literal reason for existence, his Goddess herself, abandoned him. And Raven, he swore himself to self-sacrifice as a path to retribution after learning of his atrocities committed under Nasod control. His wrongdoings weren’t even his fault, goddammit.

          _We’re pathetic, aren’t we?_

         He’s addressing his old self. The hateful, inconsolable teenager so drunk on desire that he convinced himself his grief was arrogance and dragged all those who couldn’t comprehend his situation down with him. _I’m as selfish as he was, really._ He had wanted everyone to suffer like he did. He would want that once more when this passed, he was sure. The notion saddens him, or so he tells himself.

Somewhere, the sun is rising.

         To those for whom the sun rises, there is a chance for change. Each morning holds the possibility of a new beginning, a fresher start. That sun brings, along with its light, opportunity. One can wake, confront their life differently, thus their life will then change. Slowly.

         But day no longer breaks for Add.

         Time has taken everything from him, including its own very passage. There is no time anymore. He has nothing else, either. He has no friends, no family, no aspiration or resolve to push him forward. Add is a lost cause. He is a wandering, irreparable thing. So bleak and fragile everything is, devoid of any semblance of meaning. Life’s sole constancy is his ability, his cursed capability to hack away at the fabric of sentience. Not even his body or mind stays stable any longer. He cannot trust himself, and there _is_ no one else to turn to. Not here, not anymore.

         Maybe he would be crying now, if tears were still able to form in his tainted eyes. But he’s not sure he truly feels the sadness he should. Maybe he lost all those emotions somewhere along the way, too. When he chuckles, wryly, it is foreign to his ears. His voice is another element of himself he no longer recognizes.

         Grace probably wouldn’t recognize him either. He wonders if she would be disappointed in him, and if she missed him as much as he misses her. He doubts she’d approve of him now, so eroded and piteous. Add is hardly alive, and he takes lives wherever he goes. She loved living things, and she valued them greatly. Certainly, she would mourn him as he was now. Just as he mourned her.

         He wishes for his mother, despite everything. Even if he would once more be subject to his father’s sanctimonious fury, the rage that left Edward’s cheeks and wrists as violet as his eyes. He was willing, in this moment, to feel Asker’s heavy hand hit him a hundred, a million more times if it meant he could see Mother again. If he could merely apologize to her for what he became and what he’s done, he would let Father shove syringes into his skin seven days a week, and he’d take every vitriolic word from Asker’s lips like praise. He misses Mother, he misses her so bad, and only now had it occurred to him how she must have hurt also. Undoubtedly she too had been a victim of Asker’s endless wrath, even before Edward had been born, and _oh God, I’m deplorable, I’m so fucking pitiful to have given in so easily._ She must have ached exponentially more than he could fathom to see her son suffer as she did on top of her own heartache.

         Yet altruism was all she ever extended.

 _How did I permit myself to come to this sick conclusion? How did I become what I am? Why couldn’t I control my anger? Why did I choose animosity over kindness in life?_ The answer is simple: he is weak. He allowed himself to be so overcome with misery that he stopped paying mind to how his actions affected his life and others. And he got what he deserved, didn’t he? Being stuck in this lifeless purgatory, desolate and barren, as retribution for the despondency he lived causing. A landscape without light for a man filled with darkness. Fitting, this fate was. He is overwhelmed, now, with regret.

         He longs for Mother, for his friends and all their radiance. The shining eyes of a prince perfecting his craft, fire thrown from a selfless man’s hand in his effort to help, a holy woman bathed in celestial light...  He admired the El Search Party for their strength and their loyalty to each other. A sob, choked and soft, escapes him. He is lonely. He misses them all. Edward wants what he once had and so foolishly threw away. Regret and longing. Sadness. These sensations are the only ones that remind him he exists. If it had meant anything to him anymore, he would say he had loved his friends.

         Edward pulls his hood away from his damp face, the fabric dissolving as he does. His thoughts scatter and his eyelids flutter shut. He is, for a fleeting moment, aware of the disintegrating slivers of his skin, and then he is not. Edward’s time is up.

         Add curls his fingers into his fist, feels the wilted blooms shift in his glove.

         “Dynamo.”

         He claws open a rift and steps out into a different day.

 

         Somewhere, the sun is setting.

**Author's Note:**

> not proofread nor edited cuz it was an all-at-once depression write. soz


End file.
